Leader To Leave School For The Disabled

HAMPTON — It's unclear how Virginia will find an interim chief for a school whose future is uncertain.

The superintendent of the Virginia School for the Deaf, Blind and Multi-Disabled is leaving Virginia to be interim head of a blossoming school district southeast of Phoenix.

Darlene White signed a one-year contract with the Coolidge Unified School District in late June and informed officials at the Virginia Department of Education on Thursday that she had accepted the job. Her first day in Arizona is July 17.

"We're just ecstatic to have her," said Tom Beckett, head of human resources and spokesman for the Coolidge district. "She brings a wealth of experience."

White's departure adds further uncertainty to an already cloudy situation at the school that teaches fundamental life skills to disabled students. State lawmakers have argued for years about what to do with the two state-sponsored schools that educate deaf and blind students.

This year's state budget earmarks $2.5 million to begin planning a combined school on the other site in Staunton. Legislators also included language in the budget that would let the Hampton school be taken over by an existing, but still unnamed, organization.

Those changes are supposed to be in place by the end of June 2008, which leaves the state Education Department tasked with finding what will amount to an interim chief.

"This is a unique situation," said spokeswoman Julie Grimes, who said it's unclear how the department would search for a replacement.

White oversaw some turbulent times at the Hampton-based school, most notably the fallout from a 2004 report that found 97 staffing and record keeping violations during a three-year period.

In Coolidge, Beckett said that White would help school officials search for a permanent chief for a district that currently has 4,100 students but expects to add another 35,000 in the next decade.